.....When these radio shows are compressed into hundreds of shows, the sound and tonal quality can be greatly diminished, especially if the source material was poorly restored......

A poor quality program will sound bad whether it is compressed or not.If I bought all my shows from Radio Archives I'd have thousands of dollars invested. But I do very much appreciate the recommendation and I might buy a few of my favorite episodes from them just to see how much better they sound.

If there is a very special radio show you really like and Radio Archives has it available for sale, it would be worth ordering for the crystal clarity of sound and tonal quality of what Radio Archives has achieved in what they sell. They are expensive, especially for the CD Volume sets, but the downloads are less expensive. Also, remember they do offer sales throughout the year at half price, and if a particular show is a favorite of yours, the sale price would definitely be worth it.

When the original source material is good, the voice audio quality of recordings even in the 30s and 40s especially, is quite remarkable. Once I was even going to track down the original air date to confirm I was really listening to something that old. Then they started talking about gas rationing and digging deep for the latest war bond drive, and there wasn't any doubt.

.....When these radio shows are compressed into hundreds of shows, the sound and tonal quality can be greatly diminished, especially if the source material was poorly restored......

A poor quality program will sound bad whether it is compressed or not.

Out of curiosity, what are some of your favorite radio shows? Of those radio shows are there any particular episodes that are your favorites?

Lucille Fletcher is one of the most famous writer's of old time radio shows. She wrote "Sorry, Wrong Number" and "The Hitch Hiker". Agnes Moorehead first performed "Sorry, Wrong Number" on SUSPENSE around 1943 and it was so popular and the episode received so many requests for repeats, she later performed it 7 or 8 times on SUSPENSE through about 1961 in separate live episodes. There were also East Coast and West Coast versions of that episode. Orson Welles performed in "The Hitch Hiker" which also received many requests for a re-airing. William "Bill" Conrad also received many requests for many of various shows in which he starred most notably "Linogen and the Ants" from ESCAPE. Many requests also came in for Parley Baer's performance in "The Second-Class Passenger" and also Jack Webb's performance of "A Shipment of Mute Fate" both of which episodes from ESCAPE.

I have never seen an article on the most popular episodes from the many radio shows that aired during the Golden Age of Radio, but feel such a list would certainly be interesting.